#500cal

[hcg24]

500 calories a day? Can you really eat just that much?

Learn more at https://hcg24.com/can-i-eat-less-than-500-calories-a-day-on-the-hcg-diet/

[gummydesigndiscovery-blog]

MDM650 Mastery Reflection Multi-Platform Delivery

Month nine was a journey of frustration, excitement, experimentation, and lack of sleep. During this month, I wrapped up my Thesis project of the workshop phase. Throughout this month, I have to find creative solutions to the building a brand identity and marketing strategy for 500CAL. The following categories below are the experiences of creative problem solving I have encountered.

 Logo

The problem I came across in the logo development was the disconnection between logo mark and branding campaign. The original logo contained an icon of an old-school style cartoon of a boy’s face and wordmark. However, the brand campaign utilizes the wordmark and not the icon or combination of the two. Overall, the brand campaign and logo mark are two separate campaigns.

The solution was to eliminate the icon because its old-fashion nostalgia was not relevant to the young modern appeal of the branding campaign. The key is consistency. North Star Marketing (n.d.) explains, with their analysis on great branding focused around Coca-Cola, that brand consistency manages perceptions, attitude, and confusion (North Star, n.d.). By removing the icon from the logo, the brand identity element, the food head, was able to be incorporated into the logo throughout the campaign driving brand recognition of familiarity of the two components.

The new modified logomark

Brand element

Another problem discovered in the development of the brand identity was how to make healthy, affordable food relate and appeal to Millennials (500CAL’s target audience).

The solution was to create a movement for change in the food nutrition and quality in the fast food industry. Huffington Post explains (2015) that on January 20, 2015, article by USA Today reporter Bruce Horowitz surveyed over 30,000 consumers and discovered younger consumers are more concerned about their health than price point (Watson, 2015). The increasing rate of health-minded individuals inspired the brand’s movement for change in healthy food that tastes great, is convenient, and is affordable. The campaign's message would relate to young people who believe in a healthy lifestyle being essential for a better life. The visual aspect of the message is the ‘food heads.’ This brand element represents the saying ‘you are what you eat.’ Consumers who feed their body 500CAL meals are individuals who understand the benefits of healthy food. The heads of these characters transform into food items from the client’s menu. Usually, the imagery of these characters features outdoor activity, and physical movements, or family bonding activities. The brand element signifies the motivation behind the message of the brand of healthy lifestyle and fun.

A food head

Marketing and online strategy

The next question is how do you reach the 500CALs consumers.

The marketing strategy is predominately web and technology. To reach mass audience and proximity, I felt print media was a sound solution. The platforms would consist of billboards, posters, and magazine ads. The campaign of the marketing strategy is called “feed the brain.” The feed the brain campaign is center around food heads, and the revolution of fast food made the right way. For my media coverage, online and a possible news coverage, a guerrilla campaign is strategized for major city areas. The guerrilla marketing consists of an interactive billboard that reflects passersby onto the screen and attached food heads onto their body to connect them to the campaign.

Examples of print media

The online presence would consist of social media, website, and mobile ordering app. After extensive research, I found that Millennials prefer finding information on their phones than computers. According to Social Week Media, “Millennials are quite attached to their mobile devices (at the hip) and refer to them for all their social, informational and even consumer needs” (Reynolds, 2016). Millennials are the generation of instant gratification, and their technology of choice is their mobile devices. Many companies within the fast food industry are joining the demand for mobile apps and online ordering. According to a recent American Express restaurant industry survey, “Millennials are twice as likely to place an advanced order via a mobile device, and 62 percent have placed a digital order with a restaurant in the past six months” (Johnson, 2017). The solution expanded my website project into a website, mobile site, and mobile ordering application. The social media presence will consist of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Millennials are very active on these previously mentioned sites. To connect with the demographic, the company will feature a snapchat filter instore that correlates with the feed the brain campaign where the user’s face becomes a food head.

500CAL snapchat filter

Their webpage featuring their mobile ordering app

I have learned a lot during month nine in creating a consistent branding campaign. In my future projects, I will take the knowledge I gained and add them to the research process and development stages.

 References:

Johnson, A. (2017, May 22). Tweet what you eat: Diners and restauranteurs embrace the “Food selfie,” online ordering and the fight against food waste. Retrieved from http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2017/Tweet-What-You-Eat-Online-Ordering-Fight-Food-Waste.aspx

 North Star. (n.d.). The difference between a good brand and a great brand? Retrieved from https://www.northstarmarketing.com/2015/05/07/the-difference-between-a-good-brand-and-a-great-brand-consistency/

 Reynolds, C. (2016, February 5). 8 Tips for driving millennials to your website and keep them there. Retrieved from https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2016/02/tips-millennials-website-keep-them/

 Watson, E. (2015, February 9). Younger consumers are trending towards more health-conscious eating. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elwood-d-watson/younger-consumers-are-tre_b_6632166.html

[gummydesigndiscovery-blog]

My Mastery Journal MDM620

In month eight of my master’s degree, the objective was to develop a sound basis for my design project through research, critical thinking, discussion, and critiques. The enrichment project I chose was to create a brand identity for an up and coming healthy fast food chain called 500CAL. By the end of the month, I was able to achieve a foundation for the brand which includes a brand identity mark and Stylescape. My takeaways from this month were the importance of research and development.

 Research

My first step was to identify the client’s demographic, brand attributes, and competitors. The method I chose for investigating was Core. The Core is SKOOL OS’s strategic planning framework. According to Jose Caballer and Chris Do, founders of The Skool, “CORE is a step-by-step framework to gain clarity and insight into your client’s business” (Caballer & Do, 2015).  Their process breaks down the research into two segments: Demographic and Brand. The Demographic segment includes the 500CAL’s primary and secondary target audience. The information about the consumer is more in depth. The information includes the consumers demographic, psychographic, their story, and their wants and needs. After reading extensive articles, I discovered Millennials are the new core demographic for the fast food industry. Teens, especially, are spending, according to Statistic Brain, $258.7 Billion in 2016 (Statistic Brain, 2016). Not to mention, according to the Business Insider, “ 24% of teen spending accounts for food” (Peterson, 2017). Millennial moms are another audience the fast food industry. Millennial moms are 46% of this age group, according to Exponential, an advertising firm (n.d.). Erin Mullian Nelson (2012), from AdvertisingAge, explains millennial moms are spending $170 billion per year and are projected to spend $200 billion annually starting in 2017, and $10 trillion in their lifetimes (Nelson, 2012).  This market is in between the ages of 24 – 35. This group is living a busy lifestyle and doesn’t have the time for home cooked meals. They also live on a tight budget, so they tend to eat fast food often. The Core is determined the brand attributes for 500CAL by using a serious of quick fire questions to determine the personality and core beliefs of the company. The Brand segment has been broken down to the essence of the brand in six categories: Culture, customer, voice, feel, impact, and X-factor. Next, I developed the client’s detailed descriptions of the company with the who, what, when, where, and why questions. The final step was summarizing the work into a positioning statement for 500CAL. This was the hardest to create because my client is fictitious, so I had to make up responses and try to get into the mind of an entrepreneur in the food industry. My focus for my client’s competitors was for food chains that had 30 locations and provided patrons healthy food alternatives from tradition fast food giants like McDonald's and Taco Bell. The final selection was Chipotle, Panera, Freshii, Veggiegrill, Sweetgreen, and CAVA. All these competitors focus primarily on Millennials and provide semi healthy or real food alternatives.

 After completing my research proposal, I have the learned the importance of educating myself in the field of my client to give myself a better understanding of their industry. I Immersed myself in the field allowing me to understand what is deemed healthy and what is fast food. I also tried to get in the minds of Millennials to see what they believe is healthy and fast food to brainstorm branding ideas.

 500CAL’s Brand Analysis explains their target audience, brand development, positioning statement, and competitors.

 Once I identified my client’s brand attributes, I began developing the logo. The research behind the logo was finding examples of vintage logos in fast food industry. I discovered a lot of companies created wordmarks or a combination of wordmark with an icon. After rough sketching ideas of word marks, I surveyed friends, family members, peers, and Millennials on which of the sixteen-finalist seemed most appealing to them. Out of the 20 people, the final logo sketches were selected and turn into vectors. Once the three logos were in vector form, I created a survey for individuals to help decide the final logo. “”(). The questions I asked applicants was which of the three logos resonated fast food, healthy, and affordable. I wanted to know what did the feel when they looked at the logos. The answers I received were interesting. Regarding being healthy, the five icon was the winner because of the of the extended leaf symbol. Regarding fast food and affordability, the boy icon was selected. The feedback received on the logos were the five symbol was the popular choice, but it expressed restaurant quality expense. The boy icon looked like it would belong in a fast food joint but did not make applicants think about healthy food. The wordmark reminded people too much of Coca Cola and Cheetos. Even though most surveyors preferred the five symbol, the logo needed to portray fast food and affordability because the client wanted to compete in the fast food industry and have more affordable quick food. For that reason, the boy logo icon and wordmark was chosen.

 Final rough sketches for 500CAL

 Final three logo choices in vector form used for surveys

  Development

The development stage of the brand identity was the hardest part. Now that I had the foundation of the company, I needed to create a unique, distinctive brand concept for 500CAL to compete on a national scale. The best way to showcase my concept of 500CAL brand identity was in the form of a Stylescape. According to s15Designs, “the purpose of the Stylescape is to capture the essence of the brand going forward, not just showcase the logo” (n.d., 2017). A Stylescape includes fonts, brand identity, colors, marketing material, products, packaging, web design, social media content, environmental design, etc. I decided on two possible concepts. The first one incorporated the boy logo and a vintage, modern, fun layout. The scape included bright, bold colors, and display font. The imagery focused on happy young groups of people enjoying the product. The branding element has photos altered to resemble 1950s pin up illustration to look like a vintage modern aspect. The other marketing tool is turning people into food heads to highlight the products and message. The second concept focused on inspiration and a healthy lifestyle. The logo mark used was the five symbol, and the colors choice was milder than the first concept. The imagery focused on groups of people in an outdoor setting having fun, being energized, and creating memories. The font selection was san serifs. Thanks to the previous surveys, I discovered Millennials like to enjoy fast food with their friends, in a group setting. The final Stylescape incorporated elements of both concepts. The scape included most of the design elements of the boy icon, but I used the visual images of icons from the other concept for pattern and print marketing designs.

This Stylescape features the boy icon branding

 This Stylescapes features the five symbol branding

 Final Stylescape. This is stylization of the food heads going to be used in the marketing campaign

This is the food head concept idea that will be used throughout the campaign

This is a vintage pin up illustration to modern photos to give a classic fast food look.

If I never took the time to create a strong foundation for my client and interview people throughout my design process. I would have never come up with the ideas that I created. In future projects, I am going to include more thorough research on my clients, and talk to people in their demographic before brainstorming ideas. I learned a lot from this month, and I am excited for what is coming next.

 References:

 Caballer, J., & Do, C. (2015). Would you like fries with that? Retrieved from http://theskoolrocks.com/core1/

n.d. (2017). Design is when good strategy meets good creativity. Retrieved from https://www.s15designs.com/pages/phase-2-design

n.d. (n.d.) Marketing to millennial moms: How your brand can and should speak to this emerging consumer powerhouse. Retrieved from http://exponential.com/advertising/millenialmomswhitepaper/Millenial%20Moms%20Whitepaper.pdf

Nelson, E. (2012, August 2). Millennials want to party with your brand but on their terms. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/millennials-party-brand-terms/236444/

Peterson, H. (2017, April 10).  How teens are spending money, what they like, and where they shop. Retrieved from http://nordic.businessinsider.com/how-teens-are-spending-money-2017-4/